Why I write poems

Poetry is more than lines of text. It can give you deep satisfaction, offer a dwelling place for your secret fears, make you feel understood and less alone, increase your joy by naming it, and vicariously set your self soaring. Writing it is more than a creative outlet, although that is important enough in itself. It is an exercise in authenticity, a refuge from life’s more irksome troubles, and gives me the feeling of an infinite, tender reach for where there may be pain, or when gladness may be hard to find.

I received her words with pain and in silence,
appearing on the screen like a careless anchor,
Dropped into the chasm of my grief.

And I thought of the power of words,
Our thoughts made flesh and living,
In impermanent breath, or set in lines on a page.

They come to rest in our souls, bidden or not;
Cancer-like invade our most private centres,
And unsettle what we thought we had buried there.

I want my words to drift like wind blown seeds,
To settle where they come to land, in open hearts
Or sad, cold places where comfort has withdrawn.

I want them to glow, like embers, 
In the vortex of your breath,
I want them to radiate the warmth of dreams.

In the ruins of your hurt, and the fortress of your fears,
I breathe my words to you.
Let them live.